VCs (And Startups) Won't Be Immune To The Credit Crunch — So far the downward spiral of credit and financial markets seems to have left venture capital firms and startups relatively unharmed. Even though the IPO market closed completely in the second quarter (and opened again only slightly in the third) …

How start-ups can survive — In 2001, the first dot-com economy collapsed. New companies couldn't raise funds to continue operating. Existing companies couldn't go public or get bought. My employer (Red Herring) folded, as did hundreds of other businesses.

Why Apple shares took a nosedive — Apple shares suffered their sharpest fall in eight years Monday morning on the word of two analysts — including one whose record predicting the company's performance is mixed at best. — By 10:10 a.m ET the stock had dropped 16%, wiping out more than $18 billion …

The 25 Most Influential People on the Web — Each year, we turn to readers and BusinessWeek staff for the Best of the Web list, asking them to contribute names for a list of the Internet's movers and shakers. Take a look at the slide show to see which people have the most impact on the Web these days.

Sept 29th: The Day of Unlucky Sevens — Does anyone else find it weird that the rejection of the $700 billion bailout plan was a day of unlucky sevens? The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 777.7 for the day. — I wrote over the weekend a post that rounded up what some of the big technology companies …

What happened to Hotmail? — Last week, after receiving a “tip” from Microsoft's PR firm Waggener Edstrom, we posted on the coming rollout of a new version of Hotmail. Our readers were quick to try and catch the new version in the wild, checking out different Bay numbers like the junior sneaky geniuses we know you are.

Google Has Gone and Redefined ‘Beta’ — The question of why so many Google products are classified “beta” — and classified thusly for so long — has knocked around the tech press for some time. However, no one really seemed to know the answer, at least no one outside of Google.

Nice timing: Microsoft discloses executives raises, bonuses — The big winner this year appears to be Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner, who received the biggest bonus and salary award. — But all the top executives at Microsoft received raises and higher bonuses in fiscal 2008 than in fiscal 2007.

AP: The Modern Newsroom Looks Like a Little RSS Reader — The 20th century news and stock ticker used to be one of the most archetypal images of newsrooms all around the world. It was timely and exciting, if a bit impersonal, for editors to watch the wires for breaking news …

Hands on: Nero's LiquidTV, TiVo for your PC — Nero today announced LiquidTV, a combination software and hardware product that brings the entire TiVo experience out of the living room and onto Windows PCs. Offered as a mix of TiVo software and a handful of unique features …

Whole Travel launches good site at bad time — I'm not sure if this is a service I would choose to launch this week: Whole Travel is a new site, launching Tuesday, that's focused on “sustainable” or “green” travel. Given that most of us are likely to have a lot less green in the coming months, I worry about the concept.

I.B.M. Puts iPhone in the Lotus Position — Apple's push to make the iPhone a desired device among the world's largest companies should receive a boost this week thanks to I.B.M. — At long last, I.B.M. has issued software which will bring the e-mail, calendar and contacts functions handled …

Introducing Top Draw — Top Draw is an image generation program just launched in the Google Mac Playground. By using simple text scripts, based on JavaScript, Top Draw can create surprisingly complex and interesting images. Even cooler is that the program has built-in support for installing any image of yours as your desktop image.

The Pirate Bay Clashes with Book Publishers — Swedish book publishers have presented a study in which they show how widespread book piracy is in Sweden. The publishers think that this copyright infringement has a disastrous effect on their income, while The Pirate Bay is surprised …

Nokia CTO Bob Iannucci to step down — Nokia's (NOK1V.HE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Chief Technology Officer Bob Iannucci will step down from his position for personal reasons effective immediately, a spokesman for the world's top cell-phone maker said on Monday.

The Debate: A Twitter Play-by-Play — This graph illustrates tweet volume for specific terms mentioned during the course of last week's presidential debate. For example, how many updates per minute contained the word “Iran.” Of the terms in this graph, the most twittered word in a one minute …